ACROBAT

The conventional CIA thriller is given a hip-hop twist in this high-tech tale about a young CIA "secret work-group" at deadly odds with Agency brass. Agency veteran Tom Carr has jousted to win control of his own division and provoked the wrath of his erstwhile boss Nicholas Denton. Carr's young team, dubbed Acrobat, has just pulled a major coup retrieving military secrets from a Chinese agent's safety deposit box in a faked Wall Street bank robbery. Carr finds evidence implicating Denton in a rash of stolen military secrets, so Denton blacklists Acrobat as rogue agents, labels them bank robbers in a nationwide alert and orders their arrest. Tipped off, they run to New York, where they are ambushed and Carr is killed. The group members escape with one walking wounded and head to D.C. to get the emergency IDs and cash that Carr had set up for them, but they seem to be tracked at every turn. Deciding one of their number is a mole for Denton, the remaining members focus on taking out Denton on their own. Lira (Counterparts) creates a trigger-happy young crew running the gamut from idealistic computer geek to detached professional. Unfortunately, the flabby, juvenile prose leaves much to be desired ("But, she wasn't fragile—she was a woman: She only seemed so"), and the self-consciously "hip" tone usually falls flat and will probably alienate audiences on either side of the age divide. But those who stick around will be led down a bloody garden path to a perfectly twisted ending the most jaded reader won't see coming. (May)